Hey, everyone! To be honest, I’m super tired after 6 hours on a train without AC, I just want to crash down and sleep… We’ll spend a few pages with Stefen and his nameless assistant. If you don’t remember what happened lately, here’s your friendly reminder: REMINDER.

Some of you noticed that I added a button for Patreon. I decided to make a page since few people asked about it, I always turned them down, thinking that it’s way too early to ask for financial support. But after NiWo21k gave me a very powerful motivator (yeah, he’s that hero who pledged $50) I figured I might as well make it official without asking for anything. Anyway, thank you so much NiWo21k, you are awesome! ♡
If you are interested, $10 pledge gives you next week’s page early (without text balloons, full art).

Seriously, thanks people. When I was starting this comic I didn’t even dare to dream that so many awesome people would come here, comment, get involved, vote and push me forward. I really appreciate. I will do what I can to make the upcoming 1st chapter finalle something awesome! Look forward to it! (‘∀’●)♡

Meh. Didn’t come off as southern, but then again it IS a text format, so it can be hard to transcribe an accent. On a different note, I like what you did to the format. It looks better, and I like how you added the Twitter thingie (bad with names, worse with faces) so we can all know what’s what without having to go on social media everyday. As a non-programmmer, did you have to make it yourself, or did you just use the internet for the code needed to make this?

I think the audience has dubbed her ‘Emily’. At the very least that’s the name she goes by with me. Emily Lewandowski, doctor in psychology and biology to be precise. (Yup, I wrote a fanfic with her, but not actually about her. :P)

Also, I agree that NI most certainly deserves every bit of support we can give her. And while mine isn’t of a monetary nature, I want to believe that the things I’ve done do help as well, even if it’s just a little. 🙂

She didn’t have a name in the original (where her role was much more marginal than here) and I just stubbornly stuck with that decision~ There is still some time to change it, maybe you’ll convince me to reveal it in the comic haha

So why exactly does ‘burning them’ sound disturbing? It’s better than just tossing them away, so some nutcase can actually start worshiping them or, even worse, figure out some sort of magic formula to summon more demons to this plane.

But then again, these symbols may well be the spell which binds the demons to the will of their master.
If Stefen and Emily can figure that one out, they just might be able to actually create an effective ward against the attacks…or maybe trace the magic back to the source.
The possibilities are most definitely there, but they’ll need some solid reference material to figure this out…unless one of them is fluid in ancient magic symbols.

One question: Are those Japanese/Chinese characters? They kinda look like it. But then again, my knowledge of the far East extends just as far as their anime and a few (translated) games, so I’m most definitely not an expert. 😀

They don’t look like any script I recognize. So I’d say it’s neither Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai, Arabic, Hebrew or Russian. (Not that I can read any of them, but I usually do ok recognizing the scripts.)

Well, far east characters would’ve made quite a bit of sense, since the only weapons seemingly capable of harming the critters effectively that are carrying these signs are those magic blades Robert stumbled across.

I mean, you don’t craft a magic weapon just for the fun of it (well, some might, but magic usually needs to be finely tuned to killing whatever it is meant to kill), meaning that it’s likely that these demons have terrorized the lands before and that those blades (and likely a few other weapons) had been forged to combat them.

Now, seeing how the swords are of Japanese origin, this implies that the demon attacks happened there as well.
The prime question is, how did the demons get there?
If we rule out a ‘natural gap in reality through which the demons escaped’ (which would imply that the gateway to hell is in Japan. :P), there was likely a summoner, just like there’s Adam now.
Someone who let these creatures into their world, probably for the usual reasons.

The spell (for a lack of better term) used to call (and likely control) them would be ingrained upon them, leading to the patterns on the internal organs.

If we assume all of this to be true (yup, just guessing here :P), it would make sense for the glyphs to be of (earlier) Asian origin, because that’s where the binding spell was crafted.

But as I said, I have no proof whatsoever regarding the validity of these thesis. 🙂

Well, if it’s anything like alchemy, it’s likely a secret language distinct from whatever characters are public knowledge. You don’t want to broadcast how to summon demons to every Tom, Dick and Harry that’s managed to learn how to read; some idiot might open the gates to hell and trigger a demo apocalypse. Instead you’d keep all your knowledge either in your head, or written in code, and pass it on only to someone you deem worthy of the knowledge.

And then after a few centuries when everyone’s forgotten magic ever existed, researchers find all these interesting coded books, apply some fancy cryptanalysis to break the code, publish a few pop-science books about it (since they don’t believe any of the content is anything but superstition, so what’s the harm). And then some idiot gets his hands on it and triggers a demon apocalypse.

The benefit to the writers, at least, is that it happens long after they’ve died of natural causes.

Money is tight, so I’m only giving a little. But I do appreciate you posting the link so I can support you. I haven’t bought any of your merch, so yeah…

Do the symbols already have a meaning I should be looking to figure out? Or are they jibberish at this point? Also, what is that crumpled paper/rag in panel 2? If it’s paper, why crumple it, if it’s a rag, why leave dirty messy blood cloth next to your notes? Cleanliness is good for research.

Oh that lady is bad with cleaning, she has bloody tools lying everywhere since the very beginning. About the symbols – at this point it’s gibberish, they’ll talk about them a bit in the next few pages.
And thank you for your support! ʕ •ᴥ•ʔ Every little bit helps paying bills for the server and advertisement so I’m very grateful. And Replay doesn’t really earn anything from merchandise, that stuff is for you guys to enjoy.
Thanks again! ♡